'The prowess with which they executed the shootings unmistakably bear the imprint of someone who has had professional training.'
The Ashok Gehlot-led Congress government will have a total of 30 ministers, including 18 who had resigned earlier.
To beat BJP, you either deny them a critical mass of Hindu vote or build a regional leader and party strong enough to protect their turf, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Babbar was elected from Agra as its Lok Sabha MP twice -- in 1999 and 2004. However, following delimitation in 2008, the Lok Sabha seat became reserved for the scheduled castes.
Nirahua, a Bhojpuri star and the BJP's candidate, is drawing huge crowds in his road shows and meetings after he entered the poll fray against Yadav, but voters with caste and local equations appear favourable for the senior Yadav.
Counting of votes for the bypolls in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand will be taken up on Sunday.
Without doubt, the BJP is miles ahead in marshalling digital tools for electioneering better than any other party, observes Virendra Kapoor.
Some parties, including the Congress, also demanded immediate sacking of Union Minister of State for Home Ajay Kumar Mishra, following Samyukt Kisan Morcha's allegation that his son was travelling in one of the vehicles involved in the incident.
The BJP stormed back to power in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, trouncing its main rival SP, with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asserting that people have buried the politics of caste and religion.
The Congress's share has almost halved, down from 12 in 2014 to six now.
Chandrashekhar said he would ensure that PM Modi is not re-elected to the Lok Sabha from Varanasi.
Voting for the seventh and final round will be held on March 7 for Varanasi and its eight adjoining districts.
Ravi Kishan, the BJP's candidate, is an outsider. The BSP-SP candidate is from the powerful Nishad community. Yogi faces a tough task in ensuring that the Gorakhpur seat, which he represented from 1998 to 2017, stays with the BJP.
A minor swing of votes will be crucial to decide the fate of candidates in 21 out of 230 Assembly constituencies in Madhya Pradesh where elections are scheduled to be held on November 25.
Basic Education Minister Anupama Jaiswal's remarks came even as the ruling party's Dalit, OBC outreach programme faces criticism from opposition Bahujan Samaj Party and some BJP leaders, including MP Udit Raj.
"NCP president Sharad Pawar, Loktantrik Janata Dal president Sharad Yadav, DMK chief MK Stalin, Bihar's former deputy chief minister and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, SP president Akhilesh Yadav, BSP chief Mayawati and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal among other opposition leaders will attend the oath-taking ceremony in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh on December 17," said well-placed sources.
Rebels in the Bahujan Samaj Party have attacked their party chief Mayawati for her "extortionist tendencies," with BSP's Rajya Sabha MP Jugal Kishore calling her "daulat ki beti".
UP now has 16 ministers, the maximum from any state, in an apparent bid to keep the Dalit and other backward class votebank content.
If the Opposition has any chance at the prime minister's job, it can happen only if they all stop dropping names and work at the grassroots-level, state-wise, suggests N Sathiya Moorthy.
Madhaw Anand, the party's principal national general secretary and chief spokesperson, resigned from the posts as well as the primary membership stating that the party ran the risk of being "finished" on account of the "inconsequential" move.
The BJP may be ready and waiting to pounce on another key state of the Hindi heartland, but it is the Congress's holy trinity that issued them an invitation to the beheading, notes Sunil Sethi.
The top court had on May 7 held that former chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh cannot retain government accommodation after demitting office.
Politically, women have been making their presence felt in voter turnouts. According to the Election Commission, the female voter turnout was higher than male turnout in 16 states and Union territories.
Poonam Sinha is likely to file nomination on April 18.
51 constituencies across 7 states go to the polls in the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha election.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, for whom the temple town sharpened its Hindutva plank, is facing a challenge particularly from the Samajwadi Party in the ongoing state polls.
Nath, a nine-time MP from Chhindwara seat and currently president of state Congress unit, will take oath at a grand function to be held at Jamboree Maidan in BHEL area instead of Lal Parade Ground as announced earlier.
Unsure about having the numbers in the Rajya Sabha, the Congress, the Trinamool Congress and other parties have decided they will create awareness about the "divisive" nature of the proposed legislation, reports Archis Mohan.
Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav, who was the cynosure of all eyes at the United Progressive Alliance anniversary function last year, was conspicuous by his absence Wednesday night.
Mulayam's cousimn and senior Samajwadi Party leader Ram Gopal Yadav's son Akshay is all set to take the electoral plunge in Ferozabad. However, he faces really tough competition from BJP's S P Singh Baghel. Renu Mittal reports.
Both the BJP and the JD-U abetted the LJP split but interestingly, independently. And there hangs a tale of conflicting interests, gamesmanship, subterfuge, and retribution, reports Radhika Ramaseshan.
The Uttar Pradesh government grappled on Monday with the aftermath of violence during a farmers protest in Lakhimpur Kheri, lodging a case against Union minister Ajay Mishra's son, promising a probe by a retired high court judge and stopping opposition leaders from reaching the trouble spot.
If the Congress manages to upset its dominant rival, the BJP, in these assembly polls, then it will be a big boost to the opposition for the Lok Sabha polls, while a good show by the BJP will energise its cadres and give a fillip to its hopes of retaining the power at the Centre in 2019.
'I won't be surprised if a third alternative to Badal and the Congress is swept to power in Punjab in 2022.'
Participating in the debate on the triple talaq bill on Thursday, Khan made certain observations on a ruling party member.
The seat got vacant after the death of Bharatiya Janata Party's Rajya Sabha MP Madan Lal Saini in June. Rajasthan has 10 Rajya Sabha seats.
Nandi had defeated, by a margin of more than 14,000 votes, Keshri Nath Tripathi who was a five-time MLA, and had served thrice as the Uttar Pradesh assembly speaker and was the BJP's state unit president at that time.
'Caste-based power politics made him think that he can get away with murder.'
In terms of electoral fortunes, in all likelihood, the status quo is not going to change in any significant manner. These six seats from Bihar are unlikely to give any clear signal to UPA, NDA or Federal Front.
'If you compare Rahul with Modi, then Modi seems larger.' 'The campaign has been built to show that Rahul is not mature enough to lead the nation.'
